In his book ‘The King Whisperers’ Kerwin Swint cleverly uncovers influential figures in history, from biblical times to the present day. His chosen characters are diverse to the extreme – glamorous, idealistic, fanatical, dangerous or positively evil are descriptions which spring to mind, but this list is by no means exhaustive. It is a view of history from an interesting but unexpected angle, as he describes the shadowy figures behind the leaders of this world.

Kerwin Swint organises these characters, not by region or by period in history, as you would imagine, but by themes, so that your reading flows seamlessly from one individual to another, sometimes making huge leaps in time and continent from one paragraph to the next.

I especially enjoyed the ‘Spy’ section where Kerwin enlightens us with the ‘truth’ behind our romantic images of, for example, ‘Lawrence of Arabia,’ describing his exploits in the Arab world. From this comforting cloak of history Kerwin then leaps to the more immediate role of Omer Sulleiman in Egypt up until the present day. In fact, in his final words in this section “as of this writing”, it’s as if Kerwin’s pen is poised to anticipate history in the making, even more poignant because of the events we have witnessed in this region in recent weeks.

Kerwin writes in a style which is a pleasure to read, the thread of each chapter, for example Spies, Kingmakers and Silver Tongued Devils, enables the reader to glean an overview of how the personality of these influential figures helped to shape history.

What is Kerwin Swint’s message here? – That the people he chose to describe were unwittingly influenced by those who came before them? – Or maybe that human nature is repetative and however unique each character may be, the cycle of life turns its wheel until we learn from the past?

Whatever Kerwin’s underlying message is to you personally, I highly recommend this book. I admit that I expected to read only parts in detail and skim through the remainder but, to my surprise, I read it from cover to cover, finding it both informative and thought provoking.

Tour Notes:

Please vote for my blog in the traffic-breaker poll for this tour. The blogger with the most votes wins a free promotional twitterview and a special winner’s badge. I want that to be me! You can vote in the poll by visiting the official King Whisperers blog tour page and scrolling all the way to the bottom.